Nothing is more annoying than losing your Wi-Fi connection when binge watching your favourite TV show or video chatting in a business meeting. From spotty connections to dropped signals, leave your Wi-Fi troubles behind with the help of Google Wifi, launching today in Canada. Google Wifi is a new kind of home Wi-Fi system that works with your modem and internet provider to give you strong, reliable coverage, in every room.

Traditional Wi-Fi routers aren’t always built to support the increasing number of devices we use or high bandwidth activities like gaming or watching videos. Google Wifi is different. It’s a connected system that replaces your current router and brings everything you love about Google -- smarts, security and simplicity -- to home Wi-Fi.

Strong, reliable coverage
Google Wifi uses a technology called mesh Wi-Fi. Within our mesh network, each Google Wifi point creates a high-powered connection, and the different Wifi points work together to determine the best path for your data. The result is Wi-Fi coverage even in hard-to reach areas, not just right next to the router.*

Keeps itself fast
Most of us don’t want to spend time tweaking complex settings or managing our Wi-Fi network. Google Wifi is smart and automatically places your devices on the clearest channel and optimal Wi-Fi band, so the entire family can keep doing what they love without missing a beat. And as you roam around your house, our built-in Network Assist software will seamlessly transition your device between the Google Wifi system points in real time, to help you avoid dead spots and delays.
Google Wifi is an expandable system, so if you have a larger home, you can simply add Google Wifi points.* They connect to one another to spread a strong network signal to every room.

A simple way to control your network
To make sure you’re always in control, Google Wifi comes with an app, available on Android and iOS*, that lets you do things like pause Wi-Fi on kids’ devices (or create recurring pauses for dinnertime or homework) and is built to help keep your network safe and secure. It also shows you which devices are connected and how much bandwidth they’re using and lets you prioritize devices within your network so you can stream that latest episode uninterrupted.

Google Wifi will be available in Canada on April 28th as a 1-pack for $179 and a 3-pack for $439 from the Google Store, Best Buy Canada, Staples Canada and Walmart Canada, with more retailers coming soon.

Find out more about Google Wifi here. Posted by Ben Brown, Senior Product Manager *Home materials and layout can affect how Wi-Fi signal travels. Homes with thicker walls or long, narrow layouts may need extra Wifi points for full coverage. Google Wifi requires broadband Internet. Strength and speed of signal will depend on your Internet provider. Each Wifi point requires a nearby electrical outlet. The app requires a mobile device with Android 4 and up or iOS 8 and up.

When you think of Coachella you think of amazing music artists, thrilling performances and nonstop fun in the middle of the California desert. This year’s festival will be bigger than ever and even if you can’t make it to Coachella in person, you don’t have to miss out on a moment of the action.

For the seventh year in a row, YouTube is the the exclusive home of the Coachella livestream, presented in Canada by Coca-Cola. Music fans from around the world can tune-in to Coachella's YouTube channel from April 14-16, on any screen (desktop, mobile and living room).

And if you miss one of the big performances, COVERGIRL Canada will have you covered as the sponsor of a video-on-demand hub that will showcase highlights and footage from performers throughout the weekend.

You can choose from three always-on channels as well as a Live 360 Mode that will appear for select performances. Don’t miss any of the shows you’re most excited for by creating a personalized calendar that lets you track all your favorite performances. The livestream channels will automatically change to your favorite artists based on your selection. And if you turn on notifications for artists you subscribe to, you’ll get a note when they go live.

For the first time ever you’ll even get a sneak peek inside the famous underground dance music Yuma tent.

Stay tuned to find out more information about Coachella performances and be sure to subscribe to Coachella's YouTube channel so you’re part of the action!

So here's a challenge: How do you engage a new generation with an old story about a military battle thousands of kilometers away?
That's what we had to consider when we decided to re-tell the story of Vimy Ridge.

Vimy is one of those names that Canadians mention when they talk about their country's military past – names like The Plains of Abraham, Ypres, Dieppe, Normandy and many, many others. But what do they really know about what happened a century ago now on that towering ridge in northern France? Did we win, did we lose, did it really make a difference? And perhaps most important of all, why do some historians say it was in that bloody, horrific battle that Canada forged its soul and became a nation?
All good questions, but how in today's world of short attention spans and handheld technology can we find new and captivating ways to answer them.
That's why a seemingly odd pairing - a new age tech giant: Google Canada, teamed up with the supposedly staid old Mother Corp (and it's aging anchor!) and headed off to the battlefield just last month. And within hours of arrival there I found myself with a Google "Trekker" strapped to my back, walking through the restored trenches of Vimy Ridge.

Trekker in the Trenches
The "Trekker" is the same piece of technology that takes those Street View pictures of downtowns across Canada It isn’t that heavy – it weighs about twenty kilograms – but it does make you a bit top heavy and you have to be careful not to topple over! But the benefits for the viewer are terrific – the "Trekker" puts you right there, walking through history along the same paths our grandfathers and great grandfathers did exactly one hundred years ago during the Easter weekend of 1917. That's when the 100,000 soldiers of Canada's four divisions, for the first time together, launched an attack on what was seen as the most strategic ridge the Germans held in France.The Tunnels
Beneath the trenches, the tunnels that shuttled the troops to the front lines. Today they too are restored and safe – a far cry from the muddy, rat infested and highly dangerous subways that our forefathers used to get to the fight. And here again, we bring you right there. This time using The Odyssey - 16 interconnected GOPRO cameras - created a 360 degree video of your surroundings, to give you the ultimate feel. When watching through virtual reality goggles you can point the picture where you want to go, see what you want to see. The tunnels were an engineering feat - able to keep the soldiers and the officers safe, but right at the frontlines of the battle as it raged above.

Cemetery Trekker

Canada won the battle, and at home, that became a source of considerable national pride. And for the soldiers who did the fighting, a source of considerable and justified boasting. They had done what neither the French nor the British had been able to do over months of intense fighting. But Canada paid a very heavy price. Over four days of sometimes hand to hand combat, we lost nearly four thousand soldiers, and more than seven thousand wounded.
In the Canadian Vimy cemetery thousands lie side by side – they're young, sometimes very young, ages paying testament to the generation we lost.Monument at Vimy
The Vimy monument sits high atop the ridge that so much Canadian blood was lost to win. It is tribute to all those who died in the Great War but whose bodies were never found --- all their names, more than 11 thousand of them – are carved into the monument's walls.

Every name a compelling story of a Canadian who had travelled across the oceans to fight for "King and Country". They were fathers, sons, brothers, cousins, farmers, teachers, lawyers, labourers, hockey players, artists, preachers …. and there were kids, school students who lied about their age to do what they thought was right.

In the classroom
In the past few days the results of the Google-YouTube-CBC partnership have started to hit some select Canadian schools. Last week a grade eight class in Harriston, Ontario watched in amazement. It can be disconcerting – you really DO feel like you're there, almost reaching out to touch the trenches, the tunnels, the carved names.

And really, that's what we were hoping would happen.

Letting that new generation to virtually reach back a century and touch a moment that helped make all us, and our country, who we are.

The JUNO Awards stage is a hallowed place where Canadian music legends mix with rising stars -- and this year’s show in Ottawa was no different. The legendary Buffy Sainte-Marie kicked off the night by introducing Ottawa’s own A Tribe Called Red who were joined by Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq. The performances that followed, although musically diverse, paid a similar homage to Canada’s musical past and promising future, from Leslie Feist performing a stunning tribute to Leonard Cohen to cheeky rockers Arkells singing a song about… well… Drake’s Dad.

When looking at the top searched performances from last night’s show, it’s evident that Canadian musical taste also balances the classics with the contemporary. Google Play Music is thrilled to support Canada’s incredible music ecosystem as the official music streaming partner of the 2017 JUNO Awards. To celebrate, we’re offering everyone the chance to relive this year’s show by making top performances available for stream or download exclusively on Google Play Music at g.co/JUNOS.

Streams and downloads of tracks by participating artists include: A Tribe Called Red, The Strumbellas, Ruth B, Shawn Mendes, July Talk, Alessia Cara along with Canadian music legends Bryan Adams, Sarah Mclachlan and many more.

“An object in motion, stays in motion.” That’s Newton’s first law of physics, and it’s also the goal of Canada Learning Code Week. Our aim is to put in motion a movement to teach kids to code across Canada. We want to help youth to see technology as a powerful tool to change the world, inspire them to build the world around them and give them the critical coding skills to do so. And, we’re thrilled to be partnering with Google Canada to help make that happen!

Canada Learning Code week is a week-long coding celebration running from June 1st to June 8th, 2017. Over those days, Canadian youth will assemble in schools, libraries, museums, and other community gathering places to hear from local storytellers and historians and learn about Canadian art, culture and history before diving into a coding lesson. By inspiring Canada’s next generation of technology talent, our hope is to inspire Canadian youth to build a strong, vibrant, and inclusive Canada for the next 150 years.

Google Canada’s contribution will support our workshops and signature events across the country during the week (and beyond) and will also provide one lucky school with a set of brand-new Chromebooks to help them keep coding all-year-round.

Want your school to win? Run a coding workshop over Canada Learning Code Week and submit your students' work to be featured in our digital scrapbook! A lucky class or organization will be chosen from all submissions that celebrates Canada's history and demonstrates historical accuracy, creativity and use of coding concepts in their final project.

No coding experience necessary. We’ll provide educators all of the tools and training to run a beginner-friendly coding workshop for your community or classroom.